Movie review: Old is the new Red’

Friday

I’d rather be dead than seen at “Red,” the potbellied potboiler about four Bourne-again codgers chucking their walkers to raise Cain with a band of rogue CIA operatives out to kill them.

I’d rather be dead than seen at “Red,” the potbellied potboiler about four Bourne-again codgers chucking their walkers to raise Cain with a band of rogue CIA operatives out to kill them.

Yes, it’s to die for – die of boredom, that is. It’s barely 90 minutes, but it feels longer than a list of Bruce Willis’ flops, a dubious slate that now includes “Red.” It’s as bankrupt as movies based on comic books get, squandering assets like Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren and John Malkovich on a one-joke yarn that mistakenly believes the sight of prestigious actors in their 50s and 60s firing automatic weapons is somehow funny. Believe me, it’s not. If anything, it’s rather tedious, especially with a sub-par director in Robert Schwentke (“Flightplan”) choreographing the alleged mayhem with neither urgency nor coherence.

I haven’t seen the 66-page graphic novel written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by Cully Hamner from which “Red” is culled, but it can’t possibly be as dull and convoluted as what sibling screenwriters Erich and Jon Hoeber (last year’s horrid horror flick “Whiteout”) have cobbled together. The characters are rote, the action pedestrian and the plot an unoriginal commingling of “Spy Kids” (the senior years) and Jason Bourne streamlined for geriatric actors. Think Clint Eastwood’s “Space Cowboys” minus the humor and charm.

The only thing worse than the hapless scenario is Willis’ ludicrously macho portrayal of Frank Moses, a former CIA assassin who’s suffered the loss of both his hair and dignity in the years since he was put out to pasture by The Company.

Willis can be charming when he wants, and early on he’s close to adorable, bathing in pathos as an ex-spook, who, due to occupational hazards, never married, had kids, or cultivated friendships. Willis also establishes an engaging rapport with Mary-Louise Parker (the film’s one true standout) as Sarah Ross, a government clerk with whom he shares many lengthy conversations while feigning problems with receiving his pension checks. He’s even planning to drive to Kansas City to finally consummate their “long-distance” flirtations. Or at least he is until a black-ops CIA unit, led by the comparatively boyish-looking Karl Urban (“Lord of the Rings”), bursts through the front door of his suburban Kansas home.

Like in the Bourne movies, and the recent “Salt,” Frank has no idea why he, the hunter, has suddenly become the hunted. But he’s savvy enough to know he’d better get his atrophied butt in gear if he wants to stay alive and get to the bottom of the plot against him. Who better to assist in that endeavor than his old A-Team-like crew, comprised of Malkovich’s mentally defective weapons expert Marvin; Mirren’s crack markswoman Victoria; and Freeman’s feisty but cancer-ridden Joe.

What ensues is a sort of cut-rate version of “The Wizard of Oz,” as Frank and Sarah – whom he forcibly abducts (for her own good, natch, a la “Knight and Day”) – traverse the country rounding up the old gang in hopes of storming Emerald City, or, in this case, CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. But in order to pilfer the documents required to exonerate Frank, they’ll first need to get past the watchful eyes of a crack 93-year-old CIA archivist played by Ernest Borgnine, one of four Oscar-winners caught slumming in this drivel. The others are Mirren (“The Queen”), Freeman (“Million Dollar Baby”) and Richard Dreyfuss (“The Goodbye Girl”), the latter making a forgettable cameo as a co-conspirator in a treasonous plot involving Guatemala, of all places.

It’s sad to see so much talent go to waste on a film in which the best scenes are sufficiently summarized in its two-minute trailer. If you’ve seen that, you’ve essentially seen the movie, which lazily breaks up its two or three funny set pieces with a plethora of aimless shootouts, cheesy explosions and a plot riddled with bullet holes.

By the end, you’re in a race with the bad guys to accept defeat and declare surrender, all in hopes of avoiding another minute of torture. And all you can ask yourself is “why?” Why would so many good actors be drawn to such a bad script? Why would they place their trust in such a mediocre director? And why do they insist on embarrassing themselves so unabashedly?

I don’t know about the others, but as for Willis, he’s clearly in the throes of a midlife career crisis. And like his action-adventure compatriots, Harrison Ford and Sylvester Stallone, he’s desperately trying to return to his glory days by reverting back to playing the badass. It’s as if he thinks firing an Uzi and busting a few heads will resurrect his hip, youthful image. Well, it doesn’t. It makes him look preposterous, and the more ridiculous he looks the sadder you get, yielding a “Red” that makes you blue.

Reach Al Alexander at aalexander@ledger.com.

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